Although blogs and wikis may help educators find advice and support outside the classroom, a number of creative teachers have begun finding ways to use them inside the classroom as well.
"I started using blogs in the classroom last year," says Marsha Ratzel, a technology teacher for the Blue Valley School District in Blue Valley, Kans. "I'm not a writing teacher by tradition, but blogging has had a multiplier effect and really helped our kids. If you can trip the switch inside your students, they'll have a spark that can exponentially turn up the volume on learning."
In addition to giving students tools to further develop their technical skills—skills that often surpass those of their teachers and parents—educators say that blogs offer a powerful voice for students who might normally be too shy to speak up in class. "Sometimes, students who are very quiet will write pages on a blog," says Elizabeth Beagle, an English teacher at Landstown Technology Academy in Virginia Beach, Va. "I had one student who was frequently absent and withdrawn, but when we read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, she lit up." It turned out that the student had some background knowledge of Buddhism, and blogging enabled her to share insight on issues that Beagle says never came up during the regular class. "I'm going to blog again this year," Beagle says. "In fact, I'll be blogging with all of my classes."
What makes blogging effective as an instructional tool, teachers say, is that the online medium in which it takes place is already a familiar one to most students. Having grown up with the Internet, they are knowledgeable about e-mail and Web postings, and many use instant messaging to communicate with friends, relatives, and pen pals across the globe. To them, blogging is merely another extension of online activity that allows them to use a comfortable medium to apply their technical skills to learning.
"As kids grow up, [they become] very adept at using technology," says Amos Fodchuk, also a Landstown English teacher. "I found that kids were able to think more autonomously when using threaded dialogues online." The dialogue offered the students a chance to debate and discuss issues in depth, something not normally possible within the time constraints of an ordinary class. Many students dove into the subjects so readily that Fodchuk found himself amazed by their level of discussion and debate. "I was astounded," he says. "The biggest problem an English teacher often has is getting kids to read, and they were discussing and debating online and approaching things in a way that I was never able to find in a conventional teaching manner or approach."
Besides encouraging dialogue, blogs are also effective tools for measuring students' progress throughout the school year. "Blogs are great for portfolio assessment," says Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, a guidance statistics specialist for Virginia Beach City Publich Schools in Virginia Beach, Va. "The types of reflections and statements made at the beginning of the year and the maturation over time that you can see in students through the reflection pieces they write toward the end of the year make comparison a lot easier."
By blogging, Nussbaum-Beach says, students can reflect on material and develop higher-order thinking skills that enable them to synthesize information effectively in order to arrive at a conclusion. "Deep reflection and writing nonfiction about content subjects and instructional activities help with retention," she adds. "If we believe that to be true, then the more nonfiction writing students can do, the better students they'll be—and blogs are the perfect tool for that, because they're the perfect complement to any classroom where you want your students to write more and to think more."
